New interviews are emerging for his premiere next month. He predicts superhero flicks are doomed.

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Spielberg: We were around when the Western died and there will be a time when the superhero movie goes the way of the Western. It doesn't mean there won't be another occasion where the Western comes back and the superhero movie someday returns. Of course, right now the superhero movie is alive and thriving. I'm only saying that these cycles have a finite time in popular culture. There will come a day when the mythological stories are supplanted by some other genre that possibly some young filmmaker is just thinking about discovering for all of us.

Is there a place where we discussed his and Lucas's predictions 2 yeas ago of doom for Hollywood?

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Spielberg: The big danger goes back to what I do everyday and it's this: with all these computers, platforms and competing entertainment opportunities vying for those 24 hours, we're at the point where a studio would rather invest $250m in one film for a real shot at the brass ring, than make a whole bunch of really interesting, deeply personal and even maybe historical projects that may get lost in the shuffle.

Lucas: [Studios] are going for the gold, but that isn't gonna work forever. As a result, they're getting narrower and narrower in their focus, and people are gonna get tired of it [but] they're not gonna know how to do anything else. So you need to have these quirky things, and the quirky world is getting bigger and bigger and bigger, because you can actually [distribute them] either via little houses or just put them on Netflix, and you can actually make your money back.

Spielberg: The great thing about cable [is that] when you can't sell your script to the studios, if it's good, you can get a good cable sale. A lot of these young filmmakers that are taking their stuff to television would like to be making movies, but some of their ideas are too fringey for the movies and you need a big film festival to recognise your art in order to get a wider distribution [and] a chance for people to watch your movie. So that's the big danger and there's eventually gonna be an implosion or a big meltdown. There's gonna be an implosion where three or four, maybe even a half a dozen of these mega-budgeted movies are going to go crashing into the ground and that's going change the paradigm again.

I hope so. I really don't see how they cannot be doomed. The cost is so high to make these POS movies. Sure the tween to early teen market is nice now - but kids grow up. From a marketing standpoint hopefully they will be dead in under 8 years.

I hope so. I really don't see how they cannot be doomed. The cost is so high to make these POS movies. Sure the tween to early teen market is nice now - but kids grow up. From a marketing standpoint hopefully they will be dead in under 8 years.

I hate to break it to you, but if Batman v. Superman catches fire like they think it's going to then you're in for another decade plus of superhero flicks with larger budgets on both ends of the spectrum. Why? Because the potential rewards are huge. Marvel & D.C. will be slugging it out for cinematic supremacy.

They might occupy a large mindshare at the moment, but of the over five hundred movies to hit theatres in 2015 how many were superhero oriented? Five? Ten? The Age of Ultron isn't even the highest grossing movie of the year; that's Jurassic World followed quickly by Furious 7. Though, I suspect The Force Awakens will soon seize that crown.

One day the audience will shift, and you'll see fewer superhero pictures. They won't go away, though. They'll show up every so often.

They might occupy a large mindshare at the moment, but of the over five hundred movies to hit theatres in 2015 how many were superhero oriented? Five? Ten? The Age of Ultron isn't even the highest grossing movie of the year; that's Jurassic World followed quickly by Furious 7. Though, I suspect The Force Awakens will soon seize that crown.

One day the audience will shift, and you'll see fewer superhero pictures. They won't go away, though. They'll show up every so often.

Comics, like animation, are a medium, not a genre.

Thank you for Proving my point. They are just too expensive to keep making as returns drop. As Gen X gets older and cares less and less about memories of their childhood they will stop going and stop introducing their kids to them. The massive number of reboots turn people off as nobody wants to see another origin story, again. Sequels continue to disappoint.

I think the Star Wars 7 will kick start a new generation of original (I hope) SCI-fi and fantasy movies.

All the bad CGI is too costly for limited and smaller returns.

These movies are not as fun as they once were because they are overdone.

These movies are not as fun as they once were because they are overdone.

I think Spielbergís analogy to the western is really at the heart of the message. A whole genre of film is now gone as audiences have turned sour on the scope and arc of both the scenery and characters. There's no more demand for such a film. Every once in a while you'll get your Unforgiven or Open Range that will fuel a nostalgia, just like superhero films will in years to come, but this tent pole 3 movie release a year cannot sustain itself indefinitely.

He might not be wrong. I think it puts more pressure on us, the filmmakers, to not just crank out superhero movies for the sake of it.... who knows what audiences will want in the future.

I think I'm in the majority who will trek to the cineplex for these event movies, but have little interest beyond the Cliffs Notes of the source material. In the 1990s when most superhero movies had hokey costumes and no digital help, WWII (Saving Private Ryan), sword and sandal (Gladiator) and disaster (Titanic) movies came back briefly. But nothing ever goes away for good. The biggest shift is drama relegated to smaller screens, like Spielberg says Lincoln almost was.

Is there really no "Spielberg and Lucas on the end of Hollywood" 2013 discussion here somewhere?

The North American and European markets are largely used up. Now Hollywood are spending more money promoting in China and India. Eventually that will dry up to, and they won't be able to turn a safe profit on big budget blockbusters anywhere.

"I love the Superman of Richard Donner, The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan, and the first Iron Man, but [the] superhero film that impressed me most is one that does not take itself too seriously: Guardians of the Galaxy. When his projection was over, I left with the feeling of having seen something new in movies, without any cynicism or fear of being dark when needed. There is a difference between heroes and superheroes. The hero is an ordinary person who is faced with a serious fact and acts to modify it. A hero is a person who, walking down the street, see[s] a car on fire and runs [to] help the person who is in the driverís seat, attached to the seat belt to loosen. [A] superhero is a person who, on the same scene, would fly to the car and try to turn it upside down and shake it using his super strength, until the driver is released. I identify more with the first example. Film[s of] everyday heroes."

Cynicism and darkness we've discussed before. Superhero films are still so successful the 2016 box office is top heavy, with only one film in the domestic $100M -$300M range. Everything below is just visiting the multiplex on its way to multimedia.

It’s only going to take three or four super-blockbusters to damage the bottom line because these movies are all now costing between $225 and $300 million. If the general public finds another genre — maybe some young filmmaker will invent a genre — which starts to supplant the superhero movie this thing could happen. It almost happened a couple of summers ago, not to the extent that it hurt Hollywood. But I don’t believe that the superhero genre has the legs of the western genre, I don’t even think it has the legs of the sci-fi genre. I think that there’s a firewall between sci-fi and superhero — I don’t like to mix them because I think it’s sacrilegious. [Laughs.] At the same time, if I had a chance to make a superhero movie, I’d do it because it’s good business to do it right now. If I could find a huge superhero franchise — I’ve got one called “Transformers” — why not?

Is Spielberg's 2013 prediction of box office implosion and meltdown coming to pass in 2017?

Great Wall, King Arthur, Ghost in the Shell, and Valerian could be your "three or four crashing to the ground." But here are also "half a dozen" franchises which have grown stale: Apes, Pirates, Cars, Alien, Transformers, and Mummy. Each could stumble along for whatever reason: merchandise, affordability of the horror genre. But it would be foolish to expect the foreign market to keep showing up out of habit.

Is Spielberg's 2013 prediction of box office implosion and meltdown coming to pass in 2017?

Great Wall, King Arthur, Ghost in the Shell, and Valerian could be your "three or four crashing to the ground." But here are also "half a dozen" franchises which have grown stale: Apes, Pirates, Cars, Alien, Transformers, and Mummy. Each could stumble along for whatever reason: merchandise, affordability of the horror genre. But it would be foolish to expect the foreign market to keep showing up out of habit.

I'd say there are too many outliers among the flops you cite for this year, and I wouldn't rush to any conclusions.

Great Wall was a Chinese production and Valerian was made outside the system . . . . and King Arthur was directed by Guy Ritchie so greater than 50/50 odds you're getting [garbage] with him when he's left to his own devices. Don't know much about Ghost but its more fringe (Japanese Sci Fi?) -- so sorta like Great Wall with Scarlett Jo.

As for the abundance of franchises, everyone has collectively groaned about too many mind killing sequels for years, and we've seen them come and go. First round of Tomb Raider anyone? As for the 2017 ones cited, I'd submit that Apes (based on reviews), for one, peaked with this last, final go-round and finished strong.

More broadly, I say there's still creative juice left in the industry:

For one, even on the super hero front. My oldest daughter and a friend from the soccer team finally got around to seeing Spiderman this weekend and they thought it was the greatest. Their generation doesn't have its John Hughes and Breakfast Club so Marvel is happy to oblige as best it can. Now that the reboot is complete, I hope the next one is even more Hughes centric.

Second, I'm still processing the genius that is Dunkirk. New ground-breaking films are still being made.

And there's a lot of good news on the female front: (i) people sure seemed to like Beauty and the Beast with a strong Emma Watson, (ii) Wonder Women finally cracked the code and delivered a strong female led superhero movie (and a DC one at that), (iii) the sisters subplot was the best part of Guardians II, (iv) Sophia Coppola took it up a notch, and (v) Ingrid Goes West and The Bad Batch appear to be serving up good content on the fringe. I give the most detail on this last category because i think there's something to be said about the industry being so male dominated (male directors in baseball caps) that there is still opportunity for new, fresh films to be made. I see a guy like Ron Howard getting work and I just shrug and believe that maleness has too much to do with it.

I see a film like Ready Player One and I see a story targeting people wanting to crawl into a slick nostalgic shell but not wanting to admit what it really is.

I see a film like Ready Player One and I see a story targeting people wanting to crawl into a slick nostalgic shell but not wanting to admit what it really is.

Yet the story is about people using VR to do exactly that, which I fully expect people of any age to do very soon.

My concern isn't so much about quality as people's habits. I haven't yet seen any of the sequels listed (Apes, Pirates, Cars, Alien, Transformers, Mummy) but people clearly aren't showing up like they used to. (We can debate whether Mummy is a sequel to Mummy 3 or Dracula Untold or both.)

Which brings me to the big news this week about MoviePass dropping prices to $10/month. If that doesn't drag streaming content consumers back to the multiplex, I don't know what will. And not a moment too soon:

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AMC has reason to be skittish. Its market value plummeted 35% so far this month following a worse-than-expected Q2 earnings report. Many investors also fear that Hollywood studios will introduce premium video on demand — offering new releases to home viewers in the 90-day period when theaters usually have them exclusively.

Other theater chains have also fallen from favor, and were down again today. Stock prices for AMC, Imax, Regal Entertainment, and Cinemark each touched a 52-week low.

Is Spielberg's 2013 prediction of box office implosion and meltdown coming to pass in 2017?

The short answer would be, no, it's not.

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Originally Posted by Moedred

Great Wall, King Arthur, Ghost in the Shell, and Valerian could be your "three or four crashing to the ground." But here are also "half a dozen" franchises which have grown stale: Apes, Pirates, Cars, Alien, Transformers, and Mummy. Each could stumble along for whatever reason: merchandise, affordability of the horror genre. But it would be foolish to expect the foreign market to keep showing up out of habit.

All of those failures in question have outsized issues, but each one bears all of the excesses of Hollywood's inability to grasp what makes Marvel so successful: they make good, standalone movies. I haven't seen Valerian, and probably won't, but The Great Wall was an entertaining movie at loggerheads with its dual purpose. Ghost in the Shell took everything good about the original anime and left it on the cutting room floor. You were left with an average action movie. King Arthur was rewritten so many times that it was painfully obvious that the studio wanted a franchise that they forgot to make a good movie ultimately robbing it of any potential.

The other flicks you mention may be stale, but I'm fairly certain they all made money. They'll probably be shelved for the foreseeable future if not indefinitely.

And foreign audiences? Well, they routinely show up for their own native output.

Look at Wolf Warrior 2. It opened in its native China a month ago and has made nearly $800-million making it the second biggest single market movie ever after The Force Awakens.

The Chinese build better sets on average, but have quite the ways to go with CGI. Once they get the handle on that and build upon their action movie foundations then Hollywood is going to face an ever harder slog.

In the 90's I lived in Upper West Side of Manhattan within easy walking distance of at least 24 movie screens. Back then it wasn't like today with the majority of the screens showing the same 4 or 5 films at different times. Back then there were more mid-budget pictures and (slightly) more offerings than today. On any given weekend, my wife and I could pretty much be assured not just that there would be something new to see but that we would have to choose among the new releases.

Fast forward to 2017 and I live within easy driving distance of well over twenty four screens. There are fewer offerings to make us want to go to the theatre. What's also changed is the films are being streamed on a faster and faster cycle and I have a respectable home entertainment set up -- which means that if there is a picture I'm on the bubble about seeing, it is no loss to let it pass.

So back in the 90's, I would see films like The Founder or Manchester By The Sea in a theatre -- but now, there's no reason. My home viewing experience is good enough. I don't need a theatre. Today it is only event films like Dunkirk or a Marvel Flic or films where I like a little rowdy audience attitude/interaction that require a theatre.

So by going to fewer films in the theatre I know I'm contributing to the cycle -- of studios doubling down on fewer big bets. They have to chase their ROI after all. That doesn't scare me -- I think the big budget only model will mature and hold for some time (especially when I see Warner Bros. finally start to master the super hero flick with a film like Wonder Woman). Will the movie theatre chains go through another round of closures and bankruptcies? Yes (though fortunately, most/many screens in the U.S. are now foreign owned. Suckers!!!). Will small films still get made? Yes. Will the middle disappear? Maybe -- but a lot of that mid-range content will just end up being made by Netflix or some other streaming service, which is where I would have ended up watching it anyway. Long story short, a new equilibrium will be established without a major collapse.

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Originally Posted by Le Saboteur

The Chinese build better sets on average, but have quite the ways to go with CGI. Once they get the handle on that and build upon their action movie foundations then Hollywood is going to face an ever harder slog.

I don't fear the Chinese because creatively they have constraints and guardrails that don't exist in the U.S. Spielberg (or Lucas?) like to sound all wise likening Super Hero Flics to Westerns. Westerns ruled for something like 70 years and super hero flicks have been pulling in the big dollars for something like 30 so far? I'm sure the super hero day will exhaust itself well short of 70 years but what I've found so impressive is the genre's ability to adapt itself. Look at Batman in the past thirty years -- from Burton's zaniness to Nolan's deft noir to Affleck's devolution. There is a range there that will continue. A property like Batman will wax and wane but it won't go away. I don't see that level of creative range coming out of China to compete with U.S. story tellers in our lifetimes.

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Originally Posted by Pale Horse

Have you got around to Atomic Blonde yet?

Sadly no. My wife nixed it based on the reviews that were off to mixed but all stressed the physicality which my wife didn't want to see. Oh well, I'll catch on iTunes this Fall.

So back in the 90's, I would see films like The Founder or Manchester By The Sea in a theatre -- but now, there's no reason. My home viewing experience is good enough. I don't need a theatre. Today it is only event films like Dunkirk or a Marvel Flic or films where I like a little rowdy audience attitude/interaction that require a theatre.

.

I go to the theaters like Jb said it it makes sense. A movie theater is the ONLY time I ever have a coke, so that is a treat. There has not been 1 movie this summer that has made me go and see a film. I probably wont go until the new Blade Runner. Luckily my town has one of the oldest theaters in the US (which has start of the art sound and projection, thank you George Lucas) http://www.cameocinema.com/history.html

I am friends with the owner and I can usually talk her into putting on Caddy shack or other classics.

What's also changed is the films are being streamed on a faster and faster cycle

In the 90s running the college 35mm second run theater, scheduling became increasingly difficult because the home video window was shrinking from about 6 to 4 months. Now with small children, when babysitting doesn't work out, we try to wait about a month for a low per screen average to disturb as few theatergoers as possible if any, at a slow time of the week. A later week also gives the theater a bigger slice of the ticket price, and the movie studio less. They'll tell you, they love a film with legs (Wonder Woman pun intended).

What's inevitable is with 100 years of film, cleaned up and accessible, it's harder to convince people the current output is where it's at. As Spielberg says, there are still only 24 hours in the day.

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Originally Posted by roundshort

Luckily my town has one of the oldest theaters in the US

I should stop next time on the way to Castello di Amorosa, a friend proposed there in full armor. (Not to usurp the wine thread.)

https://www.moviepass.com
MoviePass is down to $89 a year. A movie a month makes it worthwhile. I'm increasingly suspicious some billionaire financier is willing to lose tens of millions to help preserve the filmgoing experience a little longer.